SERIES: Part Two of a Four-Part Article

Businesses have evolved into many inefficient habit patterns that actually hold back their own individuals and teams from peak performance.

Consider the tasks that you and others may be assigned, may assume or work on daily. If you were to evaluate the depth of skill, knowledge, experience and overall ability one has in connection with the tasks, in many instances there would be a radical adjustment to be made.

Think of it this way. If you started your own business and built a team from scratch, you would evaluate all of the tasks needing to be functionally addressed. With that data clearly defined, and maybe even written out, you would begin finding, interviewing and appropriately assigning the tasks that play to each player’s strength index!

The reality in the work place today is that people enter an organization, are led to their assigned workspaces and associated tasks and told to GO!

I see this every day with my Fortune 500 clients, major associations and government agency clients. Managers inherit personnel and never see beyond the surface level of the players’ abilities. Colleagues sit side-by-side for years – decades – and, in some cases, never learn of the true talent depth of the person next to them. Without that talent base being made public, no one benefits from its richness!

Right player, right task, right time, right development, right success, right performance!

Cultivating performance greatness from within oneself and from others starts with an introspective look at one’s base talent pool. A quick way of determining this depth is by using the decision model alleged to have been used by the great Benjamin Franklin in pursuit of making decisions. For yourself and for each player on your team, take a simple piece of paper, write the person’s name at the top center of the page and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page from top to bottom. Now:

In the left side, enter descriptors for the said person: Positives, Attributes, Strengths, Skills, Educational Attainments, Certifications, Accomplishments and Things They are Good at Doing!

In the right side, enter all of the descriptors for the said person: Negatives, Detriments, Weaknesses, Specific Lack of Educational Attainments and Things They Stink at Doing!

As a leader, you cannot lead others to greatness if you cannot innately tap into a positive side depth. By weighing the two sides against one another, you should determine the number of entries on a person’s weakness side, and your goal should be to know three to five times more about them on the positive side

To determine the richness of each player that you lead, do this drill for each player on a separate piece of paper or electronic word document. Challenge yourself to greatness by recognizing what others’ greatnesses are. If you are unimpressed with what you know or do not know, let that become the motivator by which you engage each player and ask for their feedback to complete this model.

To enhance an organization’s performance, routinely list all of the core functions of your organization or business area on separate pieces of paper. Then set those to the side and do the same for each person on your team. With the players’ names and Strength/Weakness Index (Ben Franklin +/- Model) detailed, lay the names on a chart or table, take the stack of functions and place them like your playing cards adjacent to the person best suited for that task, regardless of current positions. When you are done, you will notice where people are overloaded, who needs to be trained for greater performance participation and whether or not you have someone on your team that is a non-performer with no tasks assigned to them. This becomes either a training and development opportunity for the both of your or a termination identifier for that person!

Cultivating performance greatness from all players on a team is the critical factor in the business place today. As the tactical leader, this tool will aid you in determining how best to grow and deploy your people’s assets.